On fairytales

This is one of those subjects that a single blog post can do no justice. Books have been written, research done, etc etc etc But the other day I decided that I'll put in my 5 cents worth. In the evening after putting Timmy to bed either Jack or myself usually read to him. I normally read him mainly the most common today's russian fairytales (Колобок, Козлята и волк, Аленушка и братец Иванушка). Even though there is violence in them, it is usually in a fairly mild form. This made me think whether death as a subject should be introduced gradually or perhaps not at all while a child is very small.

As I was small I recall my parents and grandparents never really censoring fairytales (apart from swearing) and although I was a fairly impressionable and emotional child, I never really took the death in fairytales seriously. I remember what frightened me most when I was little, was some sort of social advertising film about fire where there were shown burns victims (mainly small children) with horrific disfigurements and a message in the end along the lines of "CHILDREN - DON'T PLAY WITH MATCHES". I distinctly recall being completely terrified after that because I could very strongly identify with those children and also imagine the physical pain of being burned. So I remember praying to God every night asking him that our house doesn't catch on fire. Obviously now I would avoid showing something like that to Tim. But fairytales...?

My hesitation whether to read Tim "scary" fairytales continues. Recently I was talking to a friend who is reading a book on the subject and the author says that those traditional (original) fairytales like Hanzel and Gretel are good for children, because they are ways for kids to come to term with death and is a way to let them think about it. I haven't completely made up my mind, but for me I have to say that I find many modern fairytales or kids books plain stupid, boring and shallow. A lot of them feel artificial in a way that they were rationally invented to try and teach children some sort of social norms and morals and try to be positive from every angle.

In any case... as I said - I haven't made up my mind yet, but I was reading Tim an old russian story of a Белая Уточка (White Duck). The story has a witch, who turns the queen into a white duck and then herself pretends to be the queen. The duck in the meantime has ducklings and as they grow up they go closer and closer to the castle where the witch and their father the king live. The witch ends up discovering who they are and (long story short) kills two out of three, so the duck herself goes to the castle and tells onto the witch and the king recognises his wife and they live happily ever after. Then there is the final paragraph about the fate of the witch, which I also read out aloud to Tim and this was the catalyst for writing this post...

"А ведьму привязали к лошадиному хвосту, размыкали по полю: где
оторвалась нога - там стала кочерга; где рука - там грабли; где голова
- там куст да колода. Налетели птицы - мясо поклевали, поднялися
ветры - кости разметали, и не осталось от ней ни следа, ни памяти!"


This is the google translation, which gives a rough idea of the fact that it's pretty graphic and gruesome...

"A witch tied to a horse's tail, opens the field: where
come off the foot - there was poker, which hand - there is a rake, where the head
- Yes there is a bush deck. The birds came - ate meat, rose
wind - swept the bones, and left no trace of her, no memory! "